Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: After a week of uncertainty, the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has restarted talks over the Pakistan govt’s call to boycott their T20 World Cup match against India in Colombo on Feb 15.PCB approached the ICC for dialogue after the world body termed the PCB’s legal steps to justify the boycott “weak”. The PCB has invoked the ‘force majeure’ clause to avoid sanctions from the ICC for violating the Member’s Participation Agreement (MPA).
It has emerged that the ICC has asked PCB to explain the reasons in detail and also questioned if the Pakistan board had done enough to avoid the situation. While the PCB didn’t officially communicate the decision to boycott the match, it wrote to the ICC invoking force majeure, citing the govt instruction it has received to not take the field versus India.The ICC underlined conditions under which force majeure can legitimately be invoked — the basic prerequisite for non-participation — besides mentioning the sporting, commercial, and governance implications of such a step. The ICC, like it did in a statement on Feb 1, formally warned the PCB of potential damages if it went ahead with the boycott.Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif had declared that the boycott call was taken to display solidarity with Bangladesh after ICC expelled the team from the T20 World Cup following the Bangladesh Cricket Board’s (BCB) refusal to travel to India. The boycott can potentially lead to financial losses running into hundreds of millions of dollars for Pakistan cricket.
